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The shift in texture let her know she’d found it, tapping her fingers at the edges until it rippled open to reveal the delicate tangle of circuitry interwoven with living tissue and nerves. Kori bit the inside of her cheek to silence her visceral reaction. Those assholes had soldered Wrex’s nerve endings, leaving them scarred and unanchored. A cruel, careless job, but afixableone. Kori would stake her professional reputation on it.

“Wrex.” She laid her hand on their shoulder, their silver eyes loaded with tension when they peered back at her. “I can fix this for you if you give me the time, but you must remain still. Do you trust me to work on you?”

They sucked in a sharp breath, worrying their lip stud with their tongue. Wrex swallowed once, twice, hands clenching and unclenching on the sides of her pillow before they gave one definitive nod.

Kori went to work.

chaptersix

wrex

Time spooledaround them in a lazy skein of sensations. Wrex breathed into Kori’s pillow, the clean scent of soap mingling with the faint pleasant musk of the woman herself. Warmth bathed their skin from the head lamp Kori wore to illuminate her task, and pressed into their sides where she rested her forearms. Welcome sensations compared to the previous teeth-gritting agony they bore while Kori shaved away their deadened nerve endings.

No numbing agent under the stars could completely nullify that, though Kori did everything in her power to make the experience a quick one. Once that task was complete, she settled into the far more meticulous task of routing and repairing the connective circuitry the Consortium’s surgeons had left a mess.

Kori hummed while she worked. Wrex hid their smile, ruminating over their current predicament. There hadn’t been much of a plan in place for escaping the Consortium’s reach. Vega Surong was a well-known destination known for frequent visitors, ones Wrex could barter with for passage to parts of the galaxy where their former employer and jailer held less legal sway.

They wondered if the commodity of their body would have been enough. Wrex had existed for years in this malfunctional state, using their wits and skill to survive the Consortium’s hold. If Kori hadn’t intercepted their pod, they would have kept using their body like a tool, never free from the ones that made them.

What would Wrex do once Kori “fixed” them? What possibilities did the stars hold? Their focus narrowed, where the possibility of what they could experience anew with this delectable woman eclipsed the uncertain future.

Anticipation scratched at the underside of their skin. They must keep still while Kori tinkered, but energy thrummed through their system, begging for release.

The song paused. “And got it,” said Kori.

Electricity rolled through their nerves. Wrex sucked in a breath as the current shot down the spine, tracing their nerves straight to the vortex of sensation gathering at their core.

“Now, to test it,” Kori murmured. The panel over their spine slid back into smooth seamless skin that she trailed her fingers across. Wrex shivered, bare skin pebbling beneath the tortuously gentle path of her touch. It’d been so long since they experienced pleasure in their sexual organs. The distant memory suddenly rekindled through Kori’s careful ministrations.

At the first whisper-soft brush of her fingers over their mound, a jolt shot through their system, lightning tracing under their skin in a burn of pleasure that bordered on pain. Wrex crushed the pillow, shocked by the intensity of the sensation after so long without, but their companion wasn’t done.

Their entire universe narrowed down the juncture between their thighs, and the callused fingertips that worked Wrex’s silicate flesh with expert care. Their legs shook as those fingers worked them open, before Kori’s breath fanned their entrance. Her tongue swept over and inward, in long strokes that ended with a flick at the nub of artificial nerves now finally connected directly to Wrex’s system.

A hoarse cry tore from their lips, overwhelmed by the influx of pleasure, true actual pleasure. Moisture clumped in their lashes, spilling down their cheeks. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. Their mind blanked when Kori’s fingers slid inside, and Wrex felt every twitch and flex. Her exploration brushed against something that sent their senses reeling. Warmth suffused their body, afloat in a sparkling wave of white, until Kori’s giggle grounded them back to the moment.

“You really can fit your whole arm in here.” She grinned up at them, elbow deep in the pocket dimension pussy.

“Don’t lose any jewelry,” Wrex wheezed. They flopped back on the bed, struggling to breathe through the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm of their life while Kori wiggled her fingers inside them.

Clear that Wrex was satisfied and satiated, she withdrew her arm and climbed onto the bed beside them. “Well, we know that attachment works.”

Wrex went still, turning to look at her. “We should really test the others.”

Kori nodded, nudging the case on the floor with her foot. “Need to make sure the integrity of that rewiring works with all your gadgets.”

“All of them?” Wrex wasn’t sure they’d survive it. Kori laughed, resting her head on their shoulder.

“Don’t worry—we can take our time.”

Time Wrex now had, finally complete and whole. For the first time since they fled in the pod, they felt free of the Consortium’s shadow. That sort of revelation gave them a second wind.

“Did you know the phallus also vibrates?”

chapterseven

kori

There wassomething to be said about the benefits of cybernetic strength. Used to being the physically stronger individual in a relationship, Kori’s current position pinned to the wall of her bunkroom by Wrex’s thrusts was a novel experience.